Risuko Complete Draft 25.Indd

Seasons of the Sword #1 Ϧε ࢠ R ISUKO A Kunoichi Tale by David Kudler Advance Review Copy Stillpoint/Atalanta Stillpoint Digital Press Mill Valley, California, USA Copyright © 2015 by David Kudler All right reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. For more information, contact the publisher at [email protected] Cover design by James T. Egan of Bookfy Design Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data provided by Five Rainbows Services Kudler, David. Risuko : a Kunoichi tale / David Kudler. pages cm. – (Seasons of the sword, bk. 1) ISBN: 978-1-938808-32-6 (hardcover) ISBN: 978-1-938808-34-0 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-938808-33-3 (e-book) 1. Japan—History—Period of civil wars, 1480-1603—Fiction. 2. Ninja— Fiction. 3. Conspiracies—Fiction. 4. Determination (Personality trait)—Fiction. 5. Young adult fction. I. Title. PZ7.1.K76 Ri 2016 [Fic]—dc23 First edition, June 2016 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-938808-32-6 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-938808-33-3 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-938808-34-0 LCCN: 2015918899 UNCORRECTED PROOF Version 1.0b25 Advance Review Copy THIS IS AN ADVANCE REVIEW COPY. IT IS NOT FOR SALE OR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION IN PHYSICAL OR DIGITAL FORM. You have received this book for review purposes only. PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE IT WITHOUT PERMISSION. If you received it from someone other than David Kudler, Stillpoint Digital Press, or NetGalley and would like to review the book, please just contact us at [email protected] to let us know. THIS DOCUMENT DOES NOT REFLECT THE FINAL TEXT OF THE BOOK. IF YOU WISH TO QUOTE FROM THE TEXT, PLEASE CONFIRM BY CONTACTING [email protected] or [email protected] Advance Review Copy Advance Review Copy For Sashako and Juju-chan — ฌ࢜సམ നͱ඀ͷઓ૪ ஍্ͷՖ Advance Review Copy Advance Review Copy — v — Advance Review Copy Contents Prologue — Serenity . 3 1 — Te Left-Hand Path . 7 2 — Putting on the Lotus . 13 3 — Flying . 19 4 — Te Edge of the World . 23 5 — Te Mt. Fuji Inn . 29 6 — Tea and Cakes . 37 7 — Wind . 43 8 — Te Mountain . 47 9 — Worth . 51 10 — Dark Letter . 55 11 — Te Full Moon . 63 12 — Novices . 67 13 — A Banquet . 73 14 —Squirrel on the Roof . 79 15 — Te Music Lesson . 83 16 — Blades. 89 17 — Moon Time at Mochizuki . 93 Advance Review Copy 18 — A Fly Advance. .Review . Copy . 99 19 — In the Web . 103 20 — Smelly Work . 109 21 — Lessons in Dance . 115 22 — Feather Soup . 121 23 — Rocks and Poppies . 127 24 — Visitors . 135 — vii — viii — Risuko 25 — To Roost. 141 26 — Climbing the Walls . 147 27 — Poppy in Winter. 151 28 — Broken Dishes . 155 29 — Proper Duty . 161 30 — Battle of White & Scarlet . 167 31 — Taking Up the Blade . 173 32 — Chicken Soup . 181 33 — Smoke and Stone . 187 34 — Falling Fast. 193 Epilogue — On the Ground . 203 Glossary . 211 Characters . 213 Place Names. 215 Map: From Serenity to the Full Moon . 217 Map: Mochizuki . 219 Risuko’s World: Did kunoichi exist? . 221 Acknowledgements . 225 Advance Review Copy Advance Review Copy R ISUKO Advance Review Copy Advance Review Copy Prologue — Serenity y name is Kano Murasaki, but everyone calls me Risuko. Squirrel. I am from Serenity Province, though I was not born there. MMy nation has been at war for a hundred years, Serenity is under attack and the Kano family is in disgrace, but some people think that I can bring vicory. That I can be a very special kind of woman. All I want to do is climb. My name is Kano Murasaki, but everyone calls me Squirrel. Risuko. Advance Review Copy Advance Review Copy — 3 — Advance Review Copy 1 — The Left-Hand Path Serenity Province, Land of the Rising Sun, Te Month of Leaves in the Firs Year of the Rule of Genki (Totomi, Japan, late autumn, 1570 a.d.) pying on the lord of the province was risky. That’s why I didn’t see what was coming. I knew it was a bad idea, but something about being there, highS up in that pine, made me feel free. I watched where Lord Imagawa stood in his castle with a samurai, pointing at a piece of paper. Paper covered with splashes of color. Green, mostly. Blue and red marking the edges. It was a hundred paces away or more. I must have been squinting hard, trying to make out what they were pointing at. That’s the only way to explain how I didn’t notice the palanquin until it had almost reached my tree. Below, two hulking men carried the shiny black box by the heavy bar between them. The thing scuttled like a beetle through the slanting morning shadows that darkened the woods. It was coming from the direcion of the village. Seeing it startled me — made my chest tight and my hands colder even than they already were. I scooted to the top of the pine, hands chilled and sticky. Advance Review Copy Half-way up the pineAdvance tree though Review I was, I hadCopy the urge to stomp on the dark, gleaming thing. Only nobles traveled by palanquin. And when had nobles ever done my family any favors? I sensed danger in the steady, silent approach. Had they seen me spying on the castle? “Risuko!” My sister called up to me. I could not even see the top of her head. — 5 — 6 — Risuko The black box crept closer, into the clearing below me. Then the palanquin stopped. I scrambled to hide myself. The cold sap smelled sharp and raw as I pressed my nose to the bark. I gave a bird whistle—a warbler call, the one that I’d told Usako I’d use if she needed to hide. I had acually been looking for birds’ eggs, though it was the wrong season for it. Hunger and the desire to do something, as well as my own pleasure in climbing, had driven me up the tree. Mother had not fed us that morning. Once the weather turned cold, she could not always provide us with more than even a small bowl of rice a day. Also, the castle had been bustling like an ants’ nest that’s been prodded with a stick, and I had been curious…. Someone below me began talking. An old woman, I thought, her voice high and birdlike, though, again, I couldn’t make out the words. Usako—my sister—stepped forward into view. I could see her head bowed, like a fright- ened rabbit. The old woman spoke again. After a pause, Usako–chan’s face, open and small, turned toward my hiding place. She pointed up at me. “Risuko,” the old woman said, “come down now.” She and her men were at the bottom of the tree. I considered leaping across to one of the other pines, but there weren’t any close enough and big enough to jump to. And I was worried that my hands were too cold to keep hold. Usako scurried of on the trail toward home. Tanks, siser, I thought. I’ll get you for that later. I wish that she had turned and waved. I wish that I had called out a good-bye. If I was going to be grabbed at the bottom, I decided that I might as well come down with a fourish. I dropped from limb to limb, bark, needles, and sap fying from the branches as my hands and feet slapped at them, barely breaking my speed. Perhaps if I came down faster than they expeced, I could make a run for it once I reached the ground. My bare feet had no sooner hit the needles beneath the tree, however, than a large hand came to rest on my shoulder. The two huge servants had managed to place themselves exacly where I would land. “What an interestingAdvance young Reviewgirl you are Copy,” the grey-haired noble- woman said. Somehow I didn’t want to interest her. The two men stepped back at the wave of her hand. She stood there, still in her elegant robes, her wooden san- dals barely sinking into the mud. “Do you climb things other than trees?” she asked, her deeply lined face bent in an icy smile, her eyes lacquer-black against her white-painted skin. The Left-Hand Path — 7 I nodded, testing my balance in this uncertain conversation. “That’s why my mother calls me Squirrel. I’m always climbing—our house, rocks, trees….” Her eyes brightened, cold as they were, and I started to let go and brag. “There’s a clif below the castle up there.” I pointed to where Lord Imagawa’s stone castle stood on the hill at the edge of the woods. “A h?” she said, looking pleased. “I like to climb up the clif.” “Oh?” she snifed, “but certainly a skinny little girl like you couldn’t get terribly far.” That stung. “Oh, yes, I’ve climbed all the way to the top of the clif bunches of times, and up the walls too, to look in at the windows and see the beautiful clothes….” I clamped my mouth shut and blushed. Noble as she clearly was, she could have had me fogged or beheaded for daring to do such a thing. I tensed. But this odd old woman didn’t have her enormous litter-carriers beat me with the wooden swords they carried in their belts.

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